1. Field
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to electronic devices, and more particularly to methods, apparatuses and articles of manufacture for use in or by a mobile device to make selective use of one or more available on-board positioning resources, some of which may employ different position determination methodologies.
2. Information
Mobile devices, such as PDAs, cell phones, smart phones and/or the like typically include functionality to provide location based services. For example, mobile devices may host applications for performing navigation functions or other functions that use position estimates of the mobile device obtained in real time. In particular example implementations, a mobile device may implement several different technologies for obtaining location estimates in real time. For example, a mobile device may include one or more receivers capable of acquiring signals from terrestrial based or satellite based transmitters to obtain information for use in computing a location estimate or “position fix.” Such technologies may include, for example, obtaining position fixes from a satellite position system such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) or other global navigation satellite system (GNSS), measuring ranges to terrestrial based cellular base stations using advanced forward trilateration (AFLT), measuring the signal strength (RSSI) received from WLAN Access Points (APs) and/or round-trip time (RTT) between the mobile and APs just to name a few examples. In other implementations, a mobile device may obtain a location estimate or position fix using multiple different technologies in a so-called hybrid positioning system.
It should be understood that different positioning technologies as pointed out above have different capabilities and limitations, etc. For example, some technologies will enable a quicker “time to fix” than others. Similarly, some technologies will provide a more precise location estimate than others. Also, certain technologies may have different power consumption characteristics and therefore consume different amounts of stored battery life. Also, depending on a particular operating environment, certain technologies may not be available while others may be available.